By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, July 13, 2006 at 5:29 PM
State Senate candidate Jeff Smith released a statement today responding to a press release from the campaign of Yaphett El-Amin which referred to his race, calling him a "known Caucasian." Labels: Commercials, State_Senate
Smith said, "While we have offered a hopeful, progressive vision to unify this district, Representative El-Amin has chosen to mire her campaign in the divisive politics of the past."
"Our city is moving forward. Yet just as we begin to move past race and revitalize our city, the El-Amin campaign had to resort to the politics of fear and hatred in a disgraceful attempt to teach racial hostility to a whole new generation of voters," said Smith.
11 Comments:
I support Smith, but I do believe we need to continue addressing racial issues before we can move beyond racial politics.
7/14/2006 9:41 AM
Addressing the racial inequities in a positive, progressive manner is far different than scaring voters from voting for a candidate of another race based solely on race. That is just the type of divisive politics that will keep St. Louisans apart.
7/14/2006 11:10 AM
Jeff's opponents just can't point to any reason why he'd be bad for North St. Louis, other than he ain't from North St. Louis. Besides, Southside is where the growing black community resides within St. Louis City.
7/14/2006 12:20 PM
Where's Nia when we need her? She ought to be all over this one. I guess her silence is a further confirmation of the death of the Boykins campaign.
But only Nia knows.
7/14/2006 1:28 PM
Amen to all of you wise commentators. Oracle, your take just made me spit up Mountain Dew all over my keyboard! Epic. Anonymous 2 is so correct, when opponents have nothing more to criticize than that--desperation has set in.
7/14/2006 1:32 PM
St. Louis needs inclusive leaders as Travis stated.
We no longer can settle for infighting based upon racial classifications.
This is 2006, and we need to get out of the 1970's.
7/14/2006 2:03 PM
An interesting update was just added to the politicalfix.com blog about the poll by Jake Wageman.
"(UPDATE: Per a conversation with a source, I’d like to add that I intentionally did not get into the merits of the poll, because I have not yet seen the numbers, nor do I know who paid for the poll. El-Amin says it was not her campaign, and Cross said it wasn’t his union.)"
Once you get over the outrage about the disgusting press release I would love to know whose poll this is anyways and how did El-Amin get her hands on it? The El-Amins seems to wash her hands of it but didn't seem to mind accessing the information and using it for its propoganda purposes. Is this a public poll that voters and the media will have access to? It sure seems like an El-Amin poll. What are they hiding... and why are they sending out press releases. Market Research Insight http://www.mri-research.com must be pissed to be pulled into this. I wonder if they knew what they were getting into with the El Amins?
7/14/2006 2:32 PM
da rat bastid:
You got that right! I'm glad someone else finally gets what I've been saying for weeks now. Candidate El-Amin will do anything, will say anything to get elected.
7/16/2006 5:03 PM
Michael and Travis,
You are assuming that Yaphet paid for this poll but she has denied that it is hers.
7/16/2006 9:05 PM
Anon:
I've seen no public statement by Candidate El-Amin distancing herself from the poll or the press release she issued, nor an apology for the attempt to play divisive politics rather than focusing on the real issues.
Strongvoice:
Jeff Smith has made no claim to having been the victim of racism. It has been the many observers of this campaign that have taken note of the many times Candidate El-Amin drags race, rather than issues, into the campagin. Something that Candidate Boykins has done as well. Thankfully, Jeff Smith, Derio Gambaro, and Kenny Jones don't play this brand of divisive politics.
Michael Kime:
The Republican link to the El-Amin campaign should come at no surprise, as I've been showing for weeks that Candidate El-Amin is a social conservative who is out of touch with the residents of the 4th district, except a small pocket that she chooses to represent.
7/17/2006 12:07 PM
El-Amin denied paying for her poll to the PD. The question is then how did she get it and why was she able to use the results for her press release etc. Very shady...
From the Political Fix:
"UPDATE: Per a conversation with a source, I’d like to add that I intentionally did not get into the merits of the poll, because I have not yet seen the numbers, nor do I know who paid for the poll. El-Amin says it was not her campaign , and Cross said it wasn’t his union."
http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/news-politicalfix/2006/07/city-fix-caucasian-comment-cause-stir/
My guess is that El Amin is late filing her Finance report because she is busy manipulating what committee paid for the poll and raising money to match Smith's quarter.
7/17/2006 11:59 PM
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